Midway through the final round of the US Open, there wouldn’t have been many people backing J.J. Spaun to win the tournament.
Spaun wrote his name into the history books at Oakmont on Sunday, after his sensational finish over the final two holes of the US Open.
The 34-year-old capped off his remarkable victory by holing an outstanding 64 foot putt on the 18th – his second birdie in a row.
Incredibly, Spaun spent the early hours of US Open Sunday nursing his sick child at his and his wife’s accommodation near the golf course.
On Father’s Day, that seemed pretty apt for the occasion, and Spaun went on to win his first ever major championship around 18 hours later.
We all love a Cinderella story don’t we? Spaun played the underdog role throughout the entire final round at Oakmont.
And he ended up being the last man standing.
Was the rain delay the key moment when things began to turn for him though?
What J.J. Spaun’s coach and caddie told him during US Open rain delay
Spaun has come across so well when speaking to the media following his win at Oakmont.
He deserves huge credit for that, but even more so for the way in which he handled himself after some really bad luck during his front nine on Sunday.
Spaun suffered one of the worst breaks anyone has ever had when his ball struck the flagstick on the second hole and careened back over the green, finishing around 40 yards off the surface.
The mental strength and sheer resilience it must have taken to come back from that is truly staggering.
He also deserves praise for shooting 40 on the front nine before coming home in 32 to win his country’s national championship.
And it seems like the rain delay midway through the round played a key role in his triumph in the end.
Spaun spoke after his US Open win and lifted the lid on something very interesting that his coach and caddie told him in the clubhouse after the players had been vacated from the course following a huge deluge of rain.
He said, “Well I kind of leaned on an experience at the Players where the same thing happened to me, where I wasn’t struggling as bad but I lost the lead on Sunday. Had a four hour delay, came back out and rallied to get into the play-off with Rory. So my coach and caddie are kind of telling me, ‘this is a good thing, we’ve been through this, we had this reset before and you’ve got to trust it’.
“So I kind of flipped a switch I guess you could say during the rain delay, and came back swinging. They told me, ‘if we told you on Monday that you’d be four shots back going into the back nine on Sunday you’d take that wouldn’t you’? And I said, ‘yeh of course’, because anything can happen on the back nine of a major championship, so I flipped the switch and started firing on all cylinders.“
Rain delays during any golf tournament are always incredibly tedious for golf fans. However, it seems like they are vitally important at times for some players.
Who is J.J. Spaun’s caddie and how will he earn from US Open win?
Spaun’s caddie is Mark Carens.
Carens has been on the bag for the newly crowned US Open champion since 2021.
He has worked for numerous high-profile players in the past, including the likes of Bubba Watson and Si Woo Kim.
J.J. Spaun received a $4,300,000 cheque for his US Open win, and it’s commonplace for caddies to get a 10% cut of their player’s earnings after a victory.
That means that Carens will receive around $430,000 from Spaun for his week’s work at Oakmont.
Not bad work if you can get it!
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